[UPDATE: here is Father Le Jeune’s French-language news of the jubilee, with a clearer reproduction of its text and a translation out of the Chinuk Wawa. Some added details make this even more fascinating now:

<A la Reine Victoria.>

La ren Viktoria a dyu rsvwar de milie
Queen Victoria was sure to be receiving thousands

Whatever language this was originally written in — there’s a chance that Father Le Jeune translated it from English for his Kamloops Wawa readers — it’s quite the fascinating little historical document.

Like “Pit’s Winter“, this letter gives us a highly focused view on the enormous shifts then happening in Indigenous life. Because Queen Victoria is said to have taken a special interest in the Indigenous people of her empire, I find it compelling to find some words from one of those people addressed to her.

The occasion was Victoria’s diamond jubilee; her 60 years on the throne made her the longest-reigning British monarch.

Further research may pinpoint who Betsywas. That was a common “name to the white man” in 1890s Indigenous communities of the Kamloops region, so I know of several candidate names from various issues of the newspaper that we might try relating to this writer:

Betsy McLeod (Kamloops), known as a Chinuk pipa expert

Betsy Wayi (Kamloops), “diploma” winner in a shorthand contest held in France

Betsy Joseph (Kamloops?), who corresponded with a nun in Denver, Colorado, USA

Important to understand: two or all three of these could be the same person. In Native communities of the 1890s, a young woman was not only likely to carry her father’s or husband’s last name (e.g. McLeod or Wayi), but also to be known by a surname that was either of those men’s first name (e.g. Joseph). In some cases a person, regardless of gender, was known by both, e.g. Joe Pete Saddleman.

There are also several Elizabeths documented in the Kamloops Wawa world, but since people seem to usually be referred to there just as they were known in daily life, I’ll stick with the Betsys today.

As far as mere words are concerned, today’s letter is neat also for showing us a new word, kwin for ‘queen’. Some dictionaries have testified to a synonym like taii kluchmin(literally ‘chief woman, boss woman’), or (aias) kluchmin taii(literally ‘(big) woman chief’). But in 1897 Kamloops Wawa was busy publishing a serial of “Our Lady of Lourdes”, which constantly talks about visions of a taii kluchmin “lady”. So we see that kwin had a different meaning from that phrase.